1.

(This didn't happen to me but I thought it was worth mentioning).

At my sisters wedding in a hotel in Aberdour, Scotland, the head chef mentioned this to a few of us that were sitting talking.

He said his sister had just came up to stay at the hotel for a week or so. She drove from somewhere in England (I can't remember the place name), probably travelling about 3 or 4 hundred miles.

He said when she left, she got onto the motorway and followed the same car all the way to the hotel where the guy in the car checked in to the hotel.

That is mental.

2.

I used to have a Peugeot 405 deisel which was overheating regularly as the head gasket was damaged. After driving for so long, I would have to stop to top up the water, then head off again.

One day as I was heading up a long hill watching the temperature guage rising, I decided (at the bottom of the hill) that I would stop in a side street at the top of the hill to top it up.

As I got to the top of the hill my Mum and Dad drove past me in the opposite direction, and I actually had to stop before turning into the street I was heading for, to let them pass. So we crossed paths about 5 metres from where I had decided to stop.

I signalled for them to stop, and after topping up the water, the car refused to start (that was the first time ever that it didn't start), so I managed to get a tow back home from my Dad.

3.

Something I do regularly, after reading about it in a book, is to "mentally pre-book" a parking space wherever I'm going. I've done this loads of times with pretty good results.

I did this once when heading up to Dunfermline town. I knew the exact spot I wanted, outside the library. There is a one way system in Dunfermline, when you arrive at the library you just have time to choose whether to turn left or right.

If you turn left and there are no spaces outside the library, you have to then drive round the whole town to get back there again. It is better to see if there is a space first. If there isn't a space you can turn right then drive round a small block and look again.

This time, I arrived at the turning, had a quick look. There were no spaces, so I turned right. Just as I started to turn right, my brother pulled out of the exact spot that I was after.

4.

In December 2010 my 1.8 litre Renault Laguna that I had owned for almost 10 years failed its MOT (compulsory annual roadworthy test in the UK). It needed lots of welding done so I decided it was time to get another car.

I also owned a honda 250cc motocrosser which I bought in 2002. I hardly ever used it and could have sold it years ago, but I kept a hold of it for one reason, to sell when I needed another car.

I spent a lot of time on the internet looking through loads of classified car sales adverts/websites. The day after the MOT, I had decided to go for something like a year 2000 1.4 litre Renault megane as it's cheaper to tax, better MPG etc.

I phoned my brother in the evening and asked him to look out for anyone selling a 1.4 megane or similar, and anyone looking to buy a 250 motocrosser. He phoned me back a couple of hours later asking if I had seen a particular advert.

On the gumtree website (UK wide classifieds site that I had already spent loads of time looking through), in the off road motorcycles section, there was a guy wanting to swap a year 2001 1.4 litre Renault megane for a 250cc motocrosser.

His location, Dunfermline, about 4 miles from me. I then tried searching the whole of the UK on the net, for anyone wanting to swap a car for a motocrosser. There was only a handful, but only one with a 1.4 Renault megane, the one that became mine.

5.

On a Friday I exchanged a few text messages with the organiser of a folk club that I hadn't been to before. It seemed like it would be an ok session for me to try the following Monday.

Over the weekend I looked on google street view for directions and noticed that the car park at the back of the pub/venue looked like a very dodgy area to park, so I arrived early on Monday 7:30pmish and parked round the corner from the venue.

I left my guitar in the car, as I wanted to check out the area and pub to see if it felt safe. Before I turned the corner I noticed a police woman so I thought I could ask her if it's a rough area.

I turned the corner to find the pub cordened off and guarded by 3 police officers. That morning at 7:50am, a 20 year old guy was found dead in the car park at the back of the pub.

6.

After uploading a youtube video for my arrangement of a certain very complicated and hard to play song I had a quick search to look at other people's versions.

As usual there were a few badly played cover versions, but I found one good version with a guy playing guitar and a woman singing.

It wasn't a video, it was a photo of them with the music playing, but I looked at their website briefly.

They are both from England.

Not long after this, I was going to play the same song at a folk club session near Edinburgh.

Before the session started I was practicing the song quietly and was confused a bit when I thought I could hear someone else practicing the same song.

I looked up and that woman and man were sitting right next to me.

They hadn't been to that folk club before and they haven't been since, they were just passing through while on a trip.

7.

I went to a tesco superstore at 4 in the morning to buy presents for my sisters kids.

I immediately noticed a remote controlled helicopter (for Liam), but I was taking my time and looking at all of the toys.

Soon a guy appeared and picked up the helicopter (At 4am the shop is usually deserted apart from shelf stackers).

It was the only helicopter left. I was a bit annoyed that he picked it up and I thought if he put it back on the shelf I would buy it.

But he eventually took it away.

I spent ages looking at toys for Liam and clothes for Heidi and I also did my full two weekly shop walking all around the store.

I later realised I had been in there for almost two hours and still hadn't decided what to get for Liam, so I thought I'd just choose something quickly then leave.

As soon as I got back to the toy area, that guy appeared and put the helicopter back on the shelf right in front of me, then he left.

8.

I was going to do the weeds at my Mums garden so I went to the supermarket to get salt and vinegar to kill the weeds.

I had also been researching foods with high potassium and found out avacados have a lot, so I went to the get some of those too.

So I was only at the supermarket for salt, vinegar and avacados.

I hadn't bought (or eaten) an avacado in my life before and I had to ask an assistant if they were a fruit or vegetable and where they were.

I thought they were too expensive for their size so I decided against buying any.

I then spent a few hours doing the weeds.

Almost every time I leave my Mums she asks if I want some food that she doesn't want like strawberries or soup or whatever and because I very rarely take any she has mentioned before "You always say no".

So when I was leaving, my Mum again asked if I wanted something.

For the first time ever it was two avacados.

9.

I had my video and lighting set up ready to record the drums for four youtube videos which I was going to start in maybe a few hours time.

I was about quarter of the way through a film that I hadn't seen before and I paused the film to make a coffee.

While I was making the coffee I remembered that one of the songs I was about to record was the song "White bird" by It's a beautiful day.

I hadn't thought about that song for a while so I started singing the song in my head to remind myself how it goes and the drum rhythm I had made up for it.

I sat back down with my coffee, pressed play on the film with the song white bird still playing in my head, and within a minute or two a song came on in the background in the film.

I immediately knew it was a song I recognised and was amazed when I realised it was "White bird" by it's a beautiful day.

Although the song is from the seventies, I had only heard it for the first time in my life maybe two years earlier, and that was also in a film.

So that was only the second time I had ever heard it.

10.

In February 2021 my Mum was in hospital and had called me twice in the past two days on her mobile which she very rarely uses so she is not familiar with how it works.

The third day I got a call about 9am which was just noises in the background and no response when I said hello a few times, so I dialled 1471 and it was my Mums number.

When I rung back I got no answer so it must have been my Mum dialling by mistake.

About two hours later the same thing happened where I could hear something like dishes being washed in the background and no response when I said hello, so I dialled 1471 knowing it would be my Mum, but it was from my friend Aidan who stays in Portugal.

The last time Aidan phoned me was maybe over a year ago so that's a huge coincidence being accidentally called twice within two hours by two different people in two different countries.

11.

In 2006 while working for a lorry company, I had to get a tyre replaced. I hadn't worked there for long so was told to follow another lorry to the tyre shop.

This was early in the morning so I parked outside the tyre shop waiting for it to open. The other lorry driver stopped at the junction for a few minutes with his engine turned off, I'm not sure what he was doing.

After a short while a car appeared from round the corner and stopped next to the lorry. The car also waited for a while. I had a clear view of both vehicles.

This is the actual junction and the position of Me, my workmate and the white arrow shows where the car came from.

I then noticed the lorry starting up and I immediately thought that he might not be aware of the car beside him because the car was in his blind spot.

I watched in horror as the lorry put his left indicator on then turned left and completely mangled the front right corner of the car. The 32 tonne tipper lorry drove through the car like there was nothing there.

The car was a right off.

The arrow below shows the direction the lorry went.

My workmate got out and apologised to the woman driver and her daughter who were both crying.

At that time, the National tyres shop in the image was a car dealer. The woman had just bought that car and had only drove it from the rear of the shop. It was a used car but it was from the showroom so it was immaculate.

She had probably just stopped to familiarise herself with the car controls or switches before starting her first journey.

12.

In 2002 I was in touch by email with an old classmate and flatmate who I hadn't met up with in a lot of years.

I was very surprised to find out his current address in Ireland was the same number and street name as my parents address in Scotland.

We arranged to meet up halfway between my place in Fife and his place in Ireland which was roughly on the west coast of Scotland.

We hadn't mentioned cars in our emails. This is our meeting, his car on the left and mine on the right.

13.

Avoiding specific people story number 1.

I almost always drive to my local shop, but my car was being repaired so I walked there late one Friday evening. It's the first time I've walked there late at night.

A diagonal route of around half a mile takes me directly to the shop. This route comes within around 100 metres of the community centre and this evening there was a few teenagers making lots of noise and were obviously drunk.

The teenagers didn't see me, but I decided on the way back to take a 90 degree route which keeps me as far away from the community centre as possible.

When I left the shop, my main purpose was avoiding (out of everyone in the world) those specific teenagers, so I was amazed when I got about 200 metres from my house that those exact teenagers were walking across the road (nowhere near the community centre) in the direction of my house.

I then had one more possible 90 degree detour which would again keep me as far away from them as possible, but even after taking that detour I amazingly ended up about 2 metres from them and one of them even said hi to me.

They were very obviously drunk and up to no good as two of them pulled their tops up over their face as I got closer to them and I heard one of them saying "Wait till he gets into his house".

So, specifically trying to avoid these exact people seemed to lead them straight to me.

14.

Avoiding specific people story number 2.

In Portugal 2005 I did street busking for a short while until I got more gigs (I've never been keen on busking). One day while playing at an outside cafe I noticed a kid walking through the customers tables holding a cup and pointing to me.

He was obviously asking for money and making out he was with me so I stopped singing and announced over my amplifier "That kid asking for money is nothing to do with me".

The kids father was standing nearby carrying an accordion and I said to him (still on the amplifier) "Why are you doing that? You could wait till I'm finished and play here". He just smiled and nodded at me. They were part of a large commune based at the end of the town.

I told a friend who had been a street artist for a lot of years and he told me I shouldn't have said anything as these people are potentially dangerous. He mentioned another person he knew who was attacked by them for something similar.

So the next day my main intention (like the story above) was to avoid (out of everyone in the whole world) those specific 2 people. I parked my van at the far end of the town in case they saw me getting out of it (I normally parked near the centre). Then I walked along the path into the centre carrying my guitar and amplifier.

As I got to a part where that path meets another path diagonally, I was absolutey stunned to see, not just those 2 people, but a large group of about 10 or 15 of them walking along that path towards the town centre.

Because a building blocked my view of their path, when I first noticed them I was now just a few metres away so I couldn't stop or change direction without them noticing. So I carried on walking at my exact same pace and I ended up joining their path literally about 1 metre in front of them all.

The timing could not possibly have been worse, and almost immediately those 2 people recognised me and they all started shouting things at me (In a language I didn't understand). I stopped in a closed shop doorway as soon as I could and, as they all walked past, they were pointing at me, saying things to me and giving me nasty looks.

I started playing in that doorway and later that same kid came up to people who were sitting outside in front of me and he again pointed at me and asked them for money while looking directly at me as if to say "what are you going to do about it?". This was just a young kid so he was obviously being told to do that by his relatives.

I stopped busking after that as it was too risky and only played in restaurants and hotels. As in the above story, trying to avoid specific people seemed to attract them directly towards me.

Below is the actual place where it happened.

15.

I had an item for sale on ebay for about a month. It got lots of interest gaining about 100 views per week but nobody messaged me about it during the whole month.

I then got messaged from someone who wanted to know dimensions. They replied quickly and we exchanged three messages within about 10 minutes.

The last message I sent said "If you buy it from me in the next half an hour I will take it to my post office immediately which will be just before last post time so you should get it tomorrow".

That message was sent at 15:18. Five minutes later at 15:23 I got an email saying "You made the sale". I take pride in posting items very quickly so I sprung into action firing my printer up and rushing around getting myself ready to hit the post office.

I paid for a postage label online and I was just about to hit "print" when I got a message saying "Sorry too small but thanks for your help".

I was not pleased about that at all after me already giving them the dimensions and paying for a label which takes a long time to get refunded. And the item was listed during a reduced selling fee promotion so I would have to relist it again with full selling fees.

So I messaged them saying "Are you cancelling the purchase? I just paid for a postage label online". They then replied saying "I didn’t purchase as needed to find out if size was suitable first".

I had to look again at the "You made the sale" email for the buyer's username and it was a completely different person. So I had to email the first person and explain what had just happened.

The timing of that was amazing, it was absolutely spot on timing for the first person to pay for it. That was after having no interest for a month.

As I mentioned at the top of the page, if you look into the chances of some coincidences happening it can be mind blowing.

I had quite a few items for sale at that time, but in the past few months I only had a couple of messages from potential buyers asking about the details of an item and, I was only selling about 8 items per month.

I always have my ebay items for sale page open and the items are sorted by most views so I can see if I need to adjust the price if items are getting no views etc. That item was always at the top of the page by a long margin with around 400 views total.

So any one of those 400 potential buyers could have either messaged me or bought it at any time in that month (even right through the night), but only one person messaged me.

And the person who bought it could have bought it at any time other than the exact time that the first potential buyer would have bought it.

And the timing of the message replies of the first person was between 2 and 4 minutes, but their reply saying "Sorry too small" was 10 minutes which gave enough time for the other person to buy it then for me to weigh the package (it was already boxed up), fire up the printer and pay for the label.

And the day before I had printed something on unusual sized paper so I had to adjust the printer settings back to A4 size and it was down to pretty much a couple of seconds before I was about to hit print that the first buyer messaged saying it was too small.

So the timing of the person buying it was incredible and the timing of the message saying it was too small was even more incredible.

Maybe a maths expert could work out some probability numbers on that incident.